Please ring the Council's out of hours number (01253) 642000 to report lost or stray dogs during these hours. You will then be contacted by the out of duty officer to make arrangement for the dog.

If you want to keep the dog you have found, you should contact the Dog Enforcement Service during office hours who will explain the legal procedure for doing this.

However well meaning, you must remember it is illegal to keep a stray dog and not inform the dog wardens or the police that you have it in your possession.

Dogs do get lost for all sorts of reasons through no fault of their owners and accidents do happen. It is likely that the dog has an owner who is desperately looking for it.

Returning or Reclaiming your Dog

If a dog carries identification, on a collar and tag or micro-chip the Council will try and return the dog. From 1 November 2015, a £30 fee will be charged for the Dog wardens returning your dog if it is found lost or straying.

Unfortunately, the Dog Enforcement Wardens are unable to return dogs if the owner or appropriate agent is not at home or the wrong details are recorded on the tag/microchip or if a dog is found to be consistently straying. In these circumstances the dog will be taken to the Council’s designated kennels which are subject to a release fee. This charge is higher than the Dog Warden returning a dog to you. For 2017/18 the charges are £67.50 for the first day or part of, and £18.50 per subsequent day up to seven days. Dogs are liable to be disposed of by transfer of ownership or destruction if not claimed within 7 days and all relevant fees paid.

Code of Conduct

When out walking you must keep your dog under control at all times. The Council has introduced a number of Public Spaces Protection Order under section 59 of ABCPA 2014 which requires any person in charge of a dog to keep the dog on a lead in certain areas, to place the dog on a lead when requested to do so by an authorised officer or where dogs are excluded; There is also a PSPO which requires any person in charge of a dog which has defecated to immediately put the faeces in a dog waste bin or a litter bin marked as being available for dog waste; or remove the faeces from the public place.

The orders comes into force and apply for three years from 1 October 2017. The Dog Enforcement Wardens regularly patrol the borough at various times of day, including outside office hours and weekend. Any person caught allowing their dog to foul and failing to remove the faeces forthwith or failing to comply with a dogs on leads/exclusion order can be issued with a fixed penalty notice of £100 or could be prosecuted in the magistrates’ court for a criminal offence and be fined up to £1,000. Further information regarding PSPOs and dog walking in Fylde can be found at http://www.fylde.gov.uk/resident/consultation-public-space-protection-order-pspo-do